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Christ the Lord was tempted and suffered for us. Come, let us adore him.Or: O that today you would listen to his voice: harden not your hearts.

Year: B(II). Psalm week: 2. Liturgical Colour: Violet.

Other saints: St Katharine Drexel (1858 - 1955)

United States

She was born in Philadelphia to a rich banking family. In 1891, at the age of 33, she founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, an order dedicated to mission work among Indians and black people. (A survey of the situation in the United States at this time described “250,000 Indians neglected, if not practically abandoned, and over nine million of negroes still struggling through the aftermath of slavery”). She spent her entire life and her entire fortune to this work, opening schools, founding a university, and funding many chapels, convents and monasteries. She died on 3 March 1955, by which time there were more than 500 Sisters teaching in 63 schools throughout the United States. See the article in Wikipedia. The Catholic Encyclopaedia has articles on her father and the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament.

Other saints: St Vignal (c.460 - 532)

Alderney

Vignal is a patois corruption of the Latin Guingualeus, itself a translation of the French Guénolé or Guignole, from the Anglo-Saxon Winwaloe / Winwallus / Winwalloc. There are some fifty variants of his name, which survives in the dedication of some churches in Brittany, Cornwall and Monmouthshire.

St Vignal was born about the year 460, possibly in Plouguin, to Fracan, a prince of Dumnonia [Brittany] and his wife Gwen Teirbron [“Gwen the Triple-Breasted”]. He became the first Abbot founder of the Abbey of Landévennec, just south of Brest, and died there on 3 March 532.

He is supposed to have assisted St Sampson and St Magloire in evangelising the Bailiwick of Guernsey, which includes Alderney, in the 6th century. Some relics were preserved at Montreuil-sur-Mer and in St Peter’s, Ghent, and until the 19th century his tomb was visible in the church at Landévennec.

Portsmouth Ordo

About the author of the Second Reading in today's Office of Readings:

Second Reading: St Ambrose of Milan (340? - 397)

Ambrose was born in Trier (now in Germany) between 337 and 340, to a Roman family: his father was praetorian prefect of Gaul. Ambrose was educated at Rome and embarked on the standard cursus honorum of Roman advocates and administrators, at Sirmium, the capital of Illyria. In about 372 he was made prefect of Liguria and Emilia, whose capital was Milan.

In 374 the bishopric of Milan fell vacant and when Ambrose tried to pacify the conflict between the Catholics and Arians over the appointment of a new bishop, the people turned on him and demanded that he become the bishop himself. He was a layman and not yet baptized (at this time it was common for baptism to be delayed and for people to remain for years as catechumens), but that was no defence. Coerced by the people and by the emperor, he was baptized, ordained, and installed as bishop within a week, on 7 December 374.

He immediately gave his money to the poor and his land to the Church and set about learning theology. He had the advantage of knowing Greek, which few people did at that time, and so he was able to read the Eastern theologians and philosophers as well as those of the West.

He was assiduous in carrying out his office, acting with charity to all: a true shepherd and teacher of the faithful. He was unimpressed by status and when the Emperor Theodosius ordered the massacre of 7,000 people in Thessalonica, Ambrose forced him to do public penance. He defended the rights of the Church and attacked the Arian heresy with learning, firmness and gentleness. He also wrote a number of hymns which are still in use today.

Ambrose was a key figure in the conversion of St Augustine to Catholicism, impressing Augustine (hitherto unimpressed by the Catholics he had met) by his intelligence and scholarship. He died on Holy Saturday, 4 April 397.

40 Days and 40 Ways: Saturday, 2nd week of Lent

The father said, “My son, you are with me always and all I have is yours. But it was only right we should celebrate and rejoice, because your brother here was dead and has come to life; he was lost and is found.” (Lk 15:21-32)

Mi 7:14-15, 18-20

The first reading from the prophet Micah is a prayer for forgiveness, an attestation of the loving mercy of God, one of the three prayers of hope added to the end of the prophecy. The opening lines suggest the circumstances of the return from the Exile, when the little community was huddled round Jerusalem, beset with enemies all round them and unable to enjoy the pasturelands all around the city – not unlike the Prodigal Son deprived of and yearning for his heritage.

The prayer itself twice invokes the faithful love of God. This is an emblematic word describing the very nature of God. When Israel rebelled against God and worshipped the golden bull (insultingly described as a “golden calf”), Moses in his despair asked for a vision or experience of God himself. The glory of God passed before him, crying out the meaning of the name which had been revealed to him, “The Lord, the Lord, a God of mercy and compassion, slow to anger, rich in faithful love and constancy” (Ex 34:6). This description of God’s unbreakable love and mercy, the undying love of a faithful close-knit family, echoes down the Scripture. In the close-knit family culture of Israel a family member knew that he or she would in the last analysis always have the other members of the family at hand to bail them out of whatever dire necessity struck. This was the faithful love which God promised to Abraham and to Jacob. God would tread down their faults to the bottom of the sea and delight in showing faithful love. This is the model of the love of the Forgiving Father.

The Gospel reading of the day is Lk 15:1-3, 11-32.

Action:

Do something to help someone with a serious physical disability.

Henry Wansbrough

This passage is an extract from the booklet “40 Days and 40 Ways” by Dom Henry Wansbrough OSB, published by the Catholic Truth Society and used by permission. “40 Days and 40 Ways” has meditations for each day in Lent. To find out more about the booklet, or to buy it, please visit the CTS web site.

I am the one who reproves and disciplines all those he loves: so repent in real earnest. Look, I am standing at the door, knocking. If one of you hears me calling and opens the door, I will come in to share his meal, side by side with him.

Remember these things, Jacob, and that you are my servant, Israel. I have formed you, you are my servant; Israel, I will not forget you. I have dispelled your faults like a cloud, your sins like a mist. Come back to me, for I have redeemed you.

What a man sows, he reaps. If he sows in the field of self-indulgence he will get a harvest of corruption out of it; if he sows in the field of the Spirit he will get from it a harvest of eternal life.